Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
March 17, 2014
Antonino Raffone, Narayanan Srinivasan, Cees van Leeuwen
Understanding consciousness is a major scientific challenge of our times, and perceptual awareness is an integral part of that challenge. This Theme Issue aims to provide a timely focus on crucial insights from leading scientists on perceptual awareness and its neural basis. The issue refers to key research questions and findings in perceptual awareness research and aims to be a catalyst for...
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
March 17, 2014
Randolph Blake, Jan W. Brascamp, David J. Heeger
102 citations
This essay critically examines the extent to which binocular rivalry can provide important clues about the neural correlates of conscious visual perception. Our ideas are presented within the framework of four questions about the use of rivalry for this purpose: (i) what constitutes an adequate comparison condition for gauging rivalry's impact on awareness, (ii) how can one distinguish...
Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
March 1, 2014
Sofía Torallas Tovar
3 citations
Abstract The Stoic three-fold classification of dreams provided Philo with a structure upon which he built his treatise on Dreams. This treatise was meant to comment on the dreams appearing in the book of Genesis, in the strict order of their appearance in the Scripture. The classification as presented by him added a gradation which classifies dreams by their phenomenology and the clarity of...
Anthropology of Consciousness
March 1, 2014
Bernhard Leistle
Abstract: In this article, I apply a structural‐phenomenological conception of experience and self to the anthropological theorizing of spirit possession. In particular, I argue that a phenomenology of the alien, as elaborated by the philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels, allows for a more differentiated understanding of possession phenomena. Following a characterization of alienness—in conceptual...
Anthropology of Consciousness
March 1, 2014
Wenyi Zhang
Abstract: In this study, I analyze how economic development projects and the ethnic tourism project in Southwest China have contributed to the failure of the ethnic Kachin villagers to observe taboos involved in shamanic healing rituals. Such a failure, initially as a local response to politico‐economic processes in Southwest China, exacerbates the increasingly poor health status of Kachin...
WIREs Cognitive Science
March 1, 2014
Tim Bayne, Jakob Hohwy
In recent decades there has been a great deal of interest in global disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative state, the minimally conscious state, and epileptic absence seizures. Global disorders of consciousness pose significant challenges to consciousness science in that the ordinary pretheoretical criteria for the ascription of consciousness are not easily applied in such contexts,...
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science
March 1, 2014
Tetsuya Kono
The concept of extended mind has been impressively developed over the last 10 years by many philosophers and cognitive scientists. The extended mind thesis (EM) affirms that the mind is not simply ensconced inside the head, but extends to the whole system of brain-body-environment. Recently, some philosophers and psychologists try to adapt the idea of EM to the domain of social cognition...
March 1, 2014
Jason N. Blum
Recent evidence in neuroscience and psychology militates against the dominant theory of consciousness that has typically been used in explaining mystical experience—a neo-Kantian model that emphasizes concepts and language as the necessary foundations of consciousness. Findings in neuroanatomy, psychology, and evolutionary biology indi-cate that emotion is more fundamental to consciousness than...
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
February 1, 2014
Max Velmans
Abstract: Newell & Shanks' (N&S's) critical review considers only a very limited sense in which mental processes can be thought of as either conscious or unconscious and consequently gives a misleading analysis of the role of consciousness in human information processing. This commentary provides an expanded analysis of conscious processing that also reveals the various ways in which mental...
Mental Health, Religion & Culture
February 1, 2014
Current research on mystical experience is offering community mental health professionals the opportunity to re-consider the role of love within clinical care. In psychological literature the historical conflation of love and sexuality is fraught with ethical concerns about professional impropriety, and the abuse of power. But the intimacy, intensity and beauty to be found within the...